


Warm

by koonutkalifee



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3943909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koonutkalifee/pseuds/koonutkalifee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Echizen gets lost. Frequently. It's beginning to become a problem, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tumblr prompt that kicked this off and then it became a monster.

Echizen is lost.

He had been following behind the Seigaku regulars, weaving in and out of the thick crowd, heading towards the registration area for this tournament, and then suddenly Momo had vanished, along with everyone else he had been following. Even Kikumaru’s brilliant hair had gone.

In his defence there had been a huge crowd of people, all at least eight inches taller than him, that had all but swallowed him up.

It takes him fifteen minutes to find them, and he only just arrives before the entries close.

Tezuka glares at him.

“Hold someone’s jacket next time,” he snaps. Echizen tries not to be irritated at how easily they’d lost him.

“You all forgot me,” he mumbles when Tezuka turns away, and Fuji turns to smile at him like he’d known all along where he was. He probably had.

Echizen resolves never to hold onto Fuji’s jacket, because that would be terrifying. Kikumaru jumped too much, Kaidoh would hiss at him and Momo would laugh at him for about three hundred years.

He hides his face under his cap and decides he just won’t get lost.

 

The next tournament the crowd is thinner and so he doesn’t lose sight of his team. Momo and Kikumaru tease him anyway.

 

He is lost again.

It will be funny this evening, to everyone but him at least, but it’s a quarter to ten and he doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go, and his neck is beginning to prickle with annoyance. Everyone is so loud and so tall and so _stupid,_ meaningless scraps of conversation blaring around him like it means something.

He finds his team with five minutes to spare and almost serves the tennis ball sitting in his pocket at Tezuka’s face when he is scolded again.

“Sorry,” he says, somewhat sincerely, though still annoyed, and goes to stand half-behind Momo.

“Get lost again?” Momo laughs at him. Echizen mutters something about being forgotten about.

 

They’re outside a tournament site and Tezuka is glaring at him hard enough to make even Echizen nervous. He wonders what he’s done wrong. The rest of their team are carefully not looking at their silent showdown, apparently entirely focused on the sign in front of them detailing the locations of the matches. All except Fuji, who is staring at them both and looking far too amused.

“Don’t get lost,” Tezuka says flatly, and Echizen’s fingers twitch around the tennis ball in his pocket. He hates to admit it but the crowd is so thick and noisy that he’ll probably immediately get separated from the rest of Seigaku. Tezuka will probably make him sit out as a substitute if he makes them late again. He doesn’t want to do that.

“’Kay,” Echizen drones. Tezuka turns towards the rest of the team and Echizen grabs the back of his jacket. Tezuka looks down at him, eyebrows raised slightly. “You said hold on to someone, right?” He stares up at Tezuka, eyes shielded from the glaring sun by the brim of his cap and so wide open when they meet Tezuka’s. Tezuka’s eyes narrow.

Kikumaru has frozen in place. Momo turns his head so the captain doesn’t notice his eyes falling out of his head. Kaidoh is doing a convincing job of ignoring everything. Kawamura’s mouth is opening and closing like a fish. Oishi holds his breath and prays. Inui slowly reaches for his notebook and Fuji’s eyes have opened and he isn’t smiling anymore. All of them are pointedly looking away from Tezuka and Echizen.

There is a very faint smirk on Echizen’s face. It doesn’t waver, even as the seconds tick past. Tezuka’s face is stony and unimpressed.

He turns to face the regulars. “Oishi. Where do we register?” Tezuka asks and Oishi scrambles to look at the map in front of them.

“Uh. We, um. Hang on-”

“Registration is in the third building on the left,” Fuji says, despite being the only one who hadn’t been staring at the map. Tezuka nods.

He turns left, followed by Echizen loosely gripping his jacket. Fuji follows after, seeming unconcerned by the sight.

“Do we just. Do nothing?” Momo mumbles out of the side of his mouth, and Kaidoh hisses back.

“What do you want to do, idiot?”

Kikumaru, who had been standing in shock since Echizen grabbed Tezuka’s jacket, turns and clutches Oishi’s arm. “Ochibi is crazy.”

“Let’s just go.” Oishi tries to sound cheerful, but he’s slightly too weirded out by how calm Tezuka had been about Echizen grabbing his jacket. “We’ll lose them if we aren’t careful.”

They hurry to catch up to their three teammates. When they finally reach the registration office, Ryuzaki is already waiting.

“You’re all on time for once.”

It isn’t possible for her not to see Echizen holding onto Tezuka, but she doesn’t even bat an eyelid. Inui has been taking notes for the past four minutes, and he notes down this lack of a reaction.

Sakuno, who is standing with her, does not have such a good poker face, and her mouth drops open in shock at the sight. Inui notes this too.

“Um, Inui,” Kawamura mutters. “What’s going on?”

“I am not sure,” Inui replies. “There is no quantifiable data.”

“Why would there be? It’s Echizen and the captain,” Momo mumbles, mostly to himself, and Fuji shakes with silent laughter.

 

They play two schools that day, and when they have to change courts to play the second team Echizen does it again, holds the back of Tezuka’s jacket and doesn’t get lost. Kawamura looks nervously at the fuming Tomo and the distraught Sakuno, then at Tezuka and Echizen, and decides that it’s one battle he doesn’t even want to watch.

Echizen is playing third singles, and goes to warm up halfway through Kikumaru and Oishi’s match. Momo goes with him and tries to question him about it, but only ends up more confused.

“Why were you holding the captain’s jacket?” He asks as Echizen stretches out his left leg.

Echizen tilts his head to the side and thinks about it for a moment.

“In case I get lost.”

Echizen wins his game 6-1 and neither Fuji nor Tezuka play that day.

 

It happens the next day, and the next, and slowly they grow accustomed to seeing Echizen holding onto Tezuka’s jacket as they switch between courts.

On the fourth day, when there are just four teams left in the tournament, it happens. Echizen and Tezuka don’t tend to talk to each other, even when walking mere inches from the other, and so they can both clearly hear the muffled sniggers coming from the team standing around the court they’re heading towards.

“Did you bring your younger brother?” one of them asks, and Echizen turns to see who was talking. It’s a gangly third-year, wearing a regular’s jacket. Tezuka has stopped, and although Echizen can clearly see where they need to go he doesn’t let go of Tezuka’s jacket.

“Aaw, how cute,” another regular says, and Echizen nearly rolls his eyes. He hopes he’ll get to play one of them.

He’s about to insult them, but Tezuka glares down at him and so he just makes a ‘che’ noise, grins unnervingly at them from under his cap’s brim.

“Let’s have a good game,” he drawls, and follows Tezuka to their side of the court.

“O-nii-san.” Echizen drags out the syllables too quietly for anyone but Tezuka to hear and Tezuka’s withering glance is enough to make Echizen snicker quietly.

It was the gangly one playing third singles, and Echizen lets him have three points in the whole game. As they shake hands he seems to be trying to ask Echizen a question, but doesn’t quite seem to know how to word it.

Echizen doesn’t care enough to find out what the question is.

 

The next time they go to a tournament Echizen and Tezuka do the same thing. No one says it, but there are far fewer people here than there were at any of the tournaments that Echizen got separated from them at.

Inui notes this fact down on the mostly-blank page in his notebook dedicated to this weird phenomenon. He simply can’t get much information from them. They walk together, Echizen half a pace behind Tezuka. They have never bumped into each other. They rarely talk – sometimes Echizen will comment on something that catches his interest, and Tezuka will either ignore him or agree. Occasionally they glare at each other for moments at a time, seemingly unprovoked. Fuji and Oishi are the only people willing to engage them in conversation as they walk together. Neither of them look uncomfortable with their arrangement.

It hurts his head, the lack of explanation.

 

They win their tournament and advance onto the next stage, the penultimate stage, and when they reach the tournament site there are more people than any of them have ever seen before, all crowded into a space that seems far too small for them to fit.

Tezuka glances down at Echizen, who is standing behind him, just in his line of sight, and sighs internally. This could be a problem; Echizen could still be swept away if his grip faltered for even a second.

(It occurs to Tezuka that this is unlikely; Echizen is a tennis player, after all. Tezuka doesn’t quite acknowledge this thought.)

He holds out an arm to Echizen without looking, and for the first time since he started teasing Tezuka like this Echizen looks uncertain.

He takes hold of Tezuka’s arm, wraps his small fingers around Tezuka’s wrist and wonders what Tezuka is doing.

The two begin to walk towards their first court, leaving the rest of their team to wonder.

 

It is a good thing Echizen holds Tezuka like this. The crowd seems to have no regard for personal space – they aren’t afforded any consideration, even as clear competitors. A group barges through theirs, and Echizen is knocked with a stray rucksack, hard and unexpected enough that he loses his grip on Tezuka. Tezuka’s fingers slip down to lock around his forearm and Echizen is jerked roughly back from being lost again.

Tezuka does not let go of Echizen’s arm even when Echizen wraps his free hand around Tezuka’s wrist, and Tezuka says something above him that he can’t quite make out.

Tezuka sighs and leans down, speaking very close to Echizen’s ear. “I don’t trust you to hold on properly,” he says, and even if there was some emotion in his voice the crowd around them is making too much noise for it to be discernible. Echizen wonders if he could tell it was there anyway.

They are very pointedly not looking at each other when their hands slide down each other’s arms, hands close enough to clasp together, which they do.

 _So he doesn’t get lost_ , Tezuka thinks to himself. He has butterflies in his stomach.

 

The next day the crowd is thinner, thin enough that Echizen probably doesn’t even need to hold onto Tezuka’s jacket as they try and find the courts.

He holds his wrist again, and Tezuka can feel every callus on the fingers pressed against his skin. He can feel Echizen’s pulse too, thumping faintly against the thin skin of his inner wrist. He tries not to think about it.

 

“Does anyone know anything yet?” Momo asks. Kikumaru shakes his head.

“You’re the closest to Echizen. If anyone were to know something, it would be you,” Inui points out, and Kaidoh snickers quietly.

“Idiot,” he mutters.

“Fuji or Oishi might know something,” Kikumaru suggests. “Oishi would be an easier target.”

“Try talking to Echizen again,” Kawamura suggests, and Momo nods.

“He’s not very helpful.”

Inui opens his notebook to the seven lines of data that he’s been able to collect on them. “It’s quite possible they aren’t even aware of the image they’re projecting.”

“It’s cute though, no?” Kikumaru sighs. “I wish Fuji wasn’t so twisted. He might take pity on us then.”

“Talk to Oishi,” Inui says, and Kikumaru nods.

 

“Who the hell knows?” Oishi says, and Kikumaru resigns to never understanding anything.

 

The last day of the penultimate stage in this tournament starts and Echizen is again holding Tezuka’s hand as they walk towards their court. There aren’t enough people around to justify it with _he’ll get lost_. Tezuka promises he’ll explain why he hasn’t let go (really why he reached in the first place, because it had been him that had taken Echizen’s hand first) at least to himself later.

They were going to win this tournament first. They were going to the final.

“So we’re in the best four, buchou?” Echizen asks besides him, and Tezuka blinks. “Do you think you’ll get to play today?”

“Yes.” Tezuka’s hand is warm, much warmer and larger than his own, and it’s kind of pleasant to hold on to.

Echizen grins widely at him, looking far too amused at the prospect of their team losing two matches.

“Kay.” He smiles again, and tries to ignore the warmth he gets at the split-second look of fondness that Tezuka gives him.

 

Echizen’s match had lasted for thirteen games, five hours, or almost twice as long as any game he’d played in the past. It had taken everything he had in him to win, and he all but collapses on the courts as the final point is called.

He stays standing, legs trembling as he shakes hands with his opponent, hiding the exhaustion in his eyes beneath the brim of his cap. He walks off the court to come face to face with Tezuka, though he doesn’t look up.

“You played well,” Tezuka tells him, and Echizen feels proud and slightly patronised.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, because he hasn’t the energy to do otherwise. He empties his water bottle and considers taking a nap beneath the nearest tree.

Tezuka has been right so far though; Fuji is about to play, and Echizen isn’t going to miss it. He stands beside the wire mesh fence and watches carefully, the ache in his legs ignored for the time being.

Fuji wins and so Tezuka does not play and although part of Echizen wanted to see Tezuka play again, the shake in his leg is getting more obvious and he’s grateful that he can sleep now.

Echizen yawns widely as they begin walking back to the bus, and he reaches for Tezuka’s hand out of habit.

Their hands are already firmly grasped together when it hits Echizen, through his haze of exhaustion, that he knows where they’re going, and probably doesn’t have a reason to hold Tezuka’s hand. He’s sure Tezuka must have known this when he let Echizen take his hand, but Tezuka doesn’t comment and so neither does he.

Nine figures, eight in bright blue and white uniforms, begin making their way towards their bus home. Echizen notes with some amusement that when he strokes his thumb against Tezuka’s wrist a slight flush appears, high on Tezuka’s cheekbones. He doesn’t think about this until much later, when it’s quiet and dark and he doesn’t have to hide his own blush.

 “You didn’t play,” Echizen says, and then hides another yawn.

“No.” Seigaku is making enough noise that their conversation is about as private as it could be, surrounded as they are.

“Heh. They must have been worse than you thought.” The grin on Echizen’s face is entirely too smug, but Tezuka doesn’t tell him off.

“No,” he says in response, and Echizen’s eyes flick up in shock. The conversation ends, but Tezuka’s eyes meet Echizen’s for a second and there’s warmth in them.

He falls asleep on the bus next to Tezuka, and although they’d let go of each other’s hands as they’d got on the bus Echizen clutches at Tezuka’s jacket as he sleeps without knowing. Tezuka spends the journey trying not to stare at Echizen’s hands folded into the white material and trying to understand exactly what it is they’re doing.

 

Practice has been called off.

School is over and practice is cancelled and the rain is coming down in sheets when he’s cornered by Fuji in the senior’s bathroom and he sees in the mirror that Fuji is being serious for once.

“What are you doing?” Fuji asks, and Tezuka doesn’t know how to answer so he doesn’t. Fuji’s eyes narrow. “Tezuka.”

“Be more specific.” He’s not evading. He just doesn’t know what Fuji wants him to say.

“Why are you doing it, then?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because you have to be careful with him.”

Tezuka thinks back to the first time he played Echizen, thinks back to Echizen crumpled on the floor in front of him with slightly hollow eyes and humiliation stinging red in his face. “Yes.” He knows this, although Echizen is stronger than anything Tezuka could throw at him now.

Fuji’s eyes narrow. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh.”

Fuji and Tezuka stare at each other for a long moment, and then Fuji’s face relaxes and he smiles as he normally does.

“Hmm, this is interesting though.” Tezuka’s stomach sinks. Fuji is sadistic enough to torture him with what he’s learnt. “You really do like him, huh?”

Fuji leaves, and Tezuka closes his eyes, resigned to the fact that Fuji has said it before he’s even admitted it to himself.

 

He and Echizen play tennis together again, on another court that none of their team have heard of and he wonders if it’s a date, unsure of what a date between them would even be. Probably just this, he thinks as he serves again.

They play for hours, going long past a one-set match but the score is never forgotten. Tezuka wins but the point gap between him and Echizen has dropped since the last time they did this and from the gleam in Echizen’s eyes it’s clear he thinks that the same thing will happen next time.

This time they get changed together, and leave the courts side by side. Tezuka holds the arm closest to Echizen slightly away from his body and Echizen takes the bait, wraps his fingers around Tezuka’s wrist and squeezes gently.

“Shall we go eat, buchou?” Tezuka hadn’t wanted to presume but he hadn’t wanted to say goodnight yet either.

When they finish eating, it’s Echizen who holds out his arm to Tezuka and Tezuka takes his hand properly, clasping their fingers together between them. It’s cold enough out that Echizen is grateful for how warm Tezuka’s hands are, and as soon as he has that thought he flushes in embarrassment.

They get on different trains, and Echizen wonders how he’s allowed to say goodbye. In the end, he just settles for running his thumb along the inside of Tezuka’s wrist and a “See you tomorrow.”

 

The tournament finals are tomorrow, and Kawamura’s restaurant is where everyone somehow gathered without agreeing to.

Tezuka and Echizen are not sitting next to each other, and although it is mostly being ignored there are occasional glances between the two of them, mostly from Kikumaru and Momo.

“Do you know-” Kikumaru mumbles.

“Not a thing.”

“How is that even possible?”

“No idea.”

The two lapse into silence, their sushi more pressing (and less sickening) than the thought of their captain’s potential dating habits. Momo wonders if best friends are supposed to talk about this kind of thing with each other. He thinks they are, but it’s Echizen. It’s unlikely they will.

Echizen and Tezuka exchange a glance across the table. Inui writes this down. He wants to ask about the _thing_ between Echizen and Tezuka, but the rest of the team seem determined not to ask either of them about it. Even Momo won’t ask about it, and Inui is perfectly aware that Momo is the most likely to get anything out of Echizen.

Fuji probably knows something, but he won’t tell unless it’s amusing.

The evening passes, and the sun sets. Gradually, everyone drifts home, excited nerves in their stomachs at the thought of tomorrow.

Oishi is walking home past the street courts when he sees them. They’re standing across from each other, the net between them, a slight smile on Tezuka’s face. He can’t see Echizen’s, but the white cap that is usually jammed over his dark hair is in his hand, his racket in the other.

He walks past without stopping, aware that on the brightly illuminated court seeing the darker path he’s on will be difficult. The two pass out of his vision and he allows himself to smile a little. There are worse things that could happen than this.

Behind him there is the sound of a racket hitting the ground and he freezes, unsure if he should turn around.

He doesn’t in the end. He doesn’t think he wants to see that.

 

Five matches and three days later the nine of them are back at Kawamura’s restaurant, elated and noisy at the day’s success.

Momo and Kaidoh are yelling at each other while shovelling food down, Oishi and Kawamura are sitting opposite Fuji, Kikumaru is flitting around everyone hooting and shouting, and Tezuka and Echizen are sitting quietly, mere millimetres between them. Oishi smiles to himself at the sight. So does Fuji.

“So loud.” Tezuka looks at Echizen, amused.

“Yes,” he agrees, but he’s not complaining.

“So sentimental,” Echizen mocks, and Tezuka stands up.

“Have you finished?” He asks, and Echizen nods.

They are already most of the way to the door when they are noticed, Kikumaru’s shout stopping them.

“Where are you going?” and it feels as though he’s been dying to ask that for a while.

Echizen pulls a face. “On a date,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

The two turn to leave, and by the time they have reached the door they’re holding hands. The setting sun illuminates the couple briefly as the door is open, and then they’re gone, disappearing around the corner.

Silence envelops the room for a brief, stunned second and then shouts explode, no one quite sure what just happened. Outside, Tezuka sighs at the noise, and Echizen grins at his exasperation.

“Let’s go, buchou,” he says, tugging slightly on Tezuka’s arm. If Tezuka felt so inclined he could easily stay standing where he was, even with all of Echizen’s weight pulling on him. Echizen isn’t very heavy.

He goes, pulling at Echizen’s hand hard enough that the two of them are standing closer together than they need to be, and they start for Tezuka’s house. The air is cooler than it has any right to be and both of them are glad they can feel the heat from the other.

“Do you think we should have been more tactful?” Echizen asks. They’re thirty, forty feet from Kawamura’s restaurant’s door and they can still hear the yelling coming from inside. A loud crash, probably Kikumaru, sounds and Tezuka winces slightly.

“Probably,” he says, and hears Echizen laughing next to him. It is rather funny, he supposes. “Come.”

Tezuka feels warm, despite the too-cold air, and Echizen does too.

**Author's Note:**

> lol who the hell gets rid of writers block two days before exams start what's with that
> 
> so many exams that i am not revising for oh god help me


End file.
